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Websleuths News

Join Websleuths Radio for the final discussion of THE KILLING SEASON
with Josh Zemam, Rachel Mills and special guests including Bob Kolker author of Lost Girls

The boy disappeared 33 years ago, the suspect had been in custody for barely a day, after decades of false starts, but already the publicity engine was outracing the actual investigation or filing of charges. “People heard the word ‘confession’ and they think that’s it, the case is solved,” a law enforcement official involved in the case said.

Is it?

“If this was a baseball game, we would be in the first inning,” the official, who would not be identified, said. “He is lucid, he’s persuasive. But there is not a lot of corroborating information.”

Indeed, Mr. Hernandez was not the first to be implicated, nor even the first to implicate himself.

In 1932, more than 200 people came forward to confess that they had kidnapped the baby son of Charles and Anne Lindbergh, the aviators. It was around that time that the police made a practice of keeping secret a few facts about a crime, as a way of weeding out people who felt compelled to claim that they had done something they had not.

Whether such details exist in the disappearance of Etan Patz is not known. Asked if Mr. Hernandez had volunteered any, Mr. Kelly did not answer directly. Because the boy disappeared without any known trace or witnesses, it may be that no such details are in the hands of the police. That makes the task of verifying Mr. Hernandez’s confession a great deal more complicated, but no less urgent

The law enforcement official involved in the case said that investigators were now trying to find reasons to trust Mr. Hernandez’s story. Why would a man with no known history of pedophilia or murderous impulses lure a boy into a bodega basement and strangle him?

“He doesn’t give any motivation in the statement,” the official said. “The admission was totally unsolicited.”

I think if they indeed told the Patz family they had their man, instead of just telling them they had a signed confession, that NYPD has the goods. But I don't know exactly what was said by NYPD to the Patzes.

I'm not verified, but I am a friend of a family member (not immediate). They think it's over. They thought it was Ramos and just wanted to know where EP was. They weren't confident over the basement search. But this afternoon the family is spreading the word that it is finally over. I hope for all of their sakes it is. Jmo

Clear your mind must be, if you are to discover the real villains behind this plot. Opinion only, my posts are.

Why would this person be perpetrating a scam? It profits him nothing that I can see. He evidently is dying of cancer and one would not think he would like to leave his family - he has a teenage daughter - a legacy like this one. LE has, at least in part, checked his story out - he indeed, they say, had told at least one other person in his family and others as well (I think I have this right) about killing a child in New York City, in 1982. Just what evidence could he reveal, 33 years after the crime? All would have been disposed of since then, I would guess, no matter who did the deed, unless, like a serial killer, one kept trophies of the kill.

I think there's more to come and it will involve at least one other person, perhaps a person on our radar. But who knows.

A scam is, quite simply, a lie. Why would he be perpetrating a scam (lie)? Any of the countless number of same reasons that hundreds, if not thousands, of other people falsely confess to crimes each year.

I whole-heartedly disagree with your statement that most 33 year old murders would have no evidence left to provide proof. I would imagine that most murderers of unsolved cases could take police to the body at any time they wished. The "body disappeared" claim is the hallmark of a scam.

I'm not verified, but I am a friend of a family member (not immediate). They think it's over. They thought it was Ramos and just wanted to know where EP was. They weren't confident over the basement search. But this afternoon the family is spreading the word that it is finally over. I hope for all of their sakes it is. Jmo

I hope for their sake that this is it for them. I hope LE has their guy.

I just find the tidbits I have been reading about what the confessor said are strange.

I'm not verified, but I am a friend of a family member (not immediate). They think it's over. They thought it was Ramos and just wanted to know where EP was. They weren't confident over the basement search. But this afternoon the family is spreading the word that it is finally over. I hope for all of their sakes it is. Jmo

When I went to bed last night, the last thing on my mind would have been that I'd wake up and spend the day following this story. I thought once the basement search was done, that we wouldn't hear the name Etan Patz in the media until, say, the 35th anniversary, and then hear it only in passing, and then again down the line, five years at a time. I really thought the 127B Forest search was a last ditch effort and that it had failed and that was that.

A scam is, quite simply, a lie. Why would he be perpetrating a scam (lie)? Any of the countless number of same reasons that hundreds, if not thousands, of other people falsely confess to crimes each year.

I whole-heartedly disagree with your statement that most 33 year old murders would have no evidence left to provide proof. I would imagine that most murderers of unsolved cases could take police to the body at any time they wished. The "body disappeared" claim is the hallmark of a scam.

All just my opinion of course.

You really don't have to define terms to me. I understand what you're saying. Your "body just disappeared" phrase appears to come from reporting done hours ago, quite probably based on LE sources who did not at that time have access to the totality of Hernandez's statement; the press conference established that Hernandez told LE he'd taken the body and left it on the street as garbage. And if it was picked up by sanitation workers as garbage, 33 years later no trace of it remains, not even at the landfill where it would have been buried.

I'm not verified, but I am a friend of a family member (not immediate). They think it's over. They thought it was Ramos and just wanted to know where EP was. They weren't confident over the basement search. But this afternoon the family is spreading the word that it is finally over. I hope for all of their sakes it is. Jmo

This doesn't at all sound logical to me. It wasn't "over" before because even though they "knew" Ramos did it, they didn't know where EP was. But now they "know" someone else did it, but don't know and likely never will know where EP is, and it's "over"? Sorry, but that doesn't follow even the most basic line of logic.

It's a good (meaning bad) one. Wiki has a pretty good write-up. A Native American who lived in the area of the Girl Scout Camp was charged with the murders but found not guilty. Many people think it was a miscarriage of justice. I never felt that the guy - Gene Leroy Hart - did the crime. It's been a talking point here in NE OK where I live (the crime scene's a little over an hour south of me) for 35 years now. Everybody alive back then who knew the case still will give you his or her opinion now.

Bodega basement? Is this the same basement that was dug up? If it is then maybe this is were the tip came about. With this guy telling his wife etc and maybe she didn't believe him just like LE didn't when he confessed years ago. He might have mentioned this basement to her and when LE was digging it up his wife realized he was telling the truth? JMO

Diehn was just interviewed on Fox 5 News here in NYC. He said he thought Hernandez might have been in the witness protection program, because every time he (Diehn) came outside, Hernandez went inside.

As someone that is fairly introverted and would prefer being alone to being in a room with 30 people, he may have just been really private and didn't like to be around anyone. I promise I'm not a hermit lol but my husband thinks it is so weird, but I don't like being outside when the neighbors are. We live in a townhome though, not sure what their situation is.

Everything is MOO and I am always willing to be wrong!

October 2013 marked 60 years since Evelyn Hartley's violent kidnapping while babysitting.